MEMOIR 



OF 



HENRY CLAY: 



BY 



ROBERT C WINTHROP. 



MEMOIR 



OF 



HENRY CLAY: 



P.V 



^v 



-C'^- 



ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 



Prepared at the Request of the New-England Historic- 
Genealogical Society, and privately reprinted from 

THEIR forthcoming VoLUME OF MEMOIRS. 




CAMBRIDGE: 

JOHN WILSON AND SON. 

SHuibcrsitD i^vcss. 

1880. 



I' 



Copyright, iS8o, 
Bv THE New England Historic-Genealogical Society. 



HENRY CLAY. 



To almost any eye wliich surveys dispassionately the 
field of our National History during the last sixty or 
seventy years, the stately figure of Henry Clay will 
come at once and prominently into view. No American 
eye wall ever overlook it. No American pen will ever 
attempt to dwarf or disparage it. All that Webster was 
to the North, all that Calhoun was to the South, Clay was 
to the Great West ; perhaps more than all. 

Neither of these three remarkable men ever com- 
manded the votes of the whole country, or grasped the 
coveted prize of the Presidency. But together — some- 
times in opposition, sometimes in conjunction, and almost 
always in rivalry — they exercised an influence on public 
affairs far greater than that of any other three men of 
their times. They did not leave their peers. Thus far 
they have had no successors of equal individuality, promi- 
nence, and power. 

Their last signal public efforts w^ere made, side by side, 
in the Senate of the United States, in support of what 
were called the Compromises of 1850. Before two years 
more had elapsed, they were all three in their graves. 
Had their lives been prolonged, in health and strength, 



2 HENRY CLAY. 

for aiiotlier decade, the civil ^var might hapl}' have been 
averted. Calhoun's doctrines of nullification and seces- 
sion may have ])()inted and even led the way to that war, 
but he had far too nuich of that " wisdom which dwelleth 
with prudence" to have prompted or sanctioned it; while 
tlie giant arms of Webster and Clay would have lield it in 
check as long as they lived. No other statesmen of that 
period had the prestige and the power to repress and 
arrest the strife of sections and of tongues which grad- 
ually brought on the struggle of arms, even had they 
desired to do so. The part, if not the art, of those who 
came after them, in all quarters of the land, seems rather 
to have been, consciously or unconsciously, to provoke 
and precipitate that terrible conflict between the North 
and the South, which was destined, by the good provi- 
dence of God, to decide the question whether the Ameri- 
can Union was strong enough to outlast the overthrow of 
African Slavery, and to maintain itself against all comers, 
domestic or foreign. All the world now rejoices in that 
decision, though all the world may not have sympathized 
Avitli the spirit in which it was prosecuted, or in the pre- 
cise steps by which it was reached. Henry Clay, cer- 
tainly, would never have recognized such a conflict, in 
advance, as "irrepressible," nor ever have relaxed his 
efforts to preserve the Union without the effusion of fra- 
ternal blood. 

In yielding to the call for a memoir of this great states- 
man, as a contribution to the present volume, I am well 
aware how utterly impracticable it will be to condense into 
a few pages any adequate notice of so long and varied a 
life. The most that can be attempted, or certainly the 
most that can l)e accomplished, is a cursory sketch of a 
gi'and career, with such personal reminiscences as may be 
recalled by one, who was in the way of witnessing, per- 
sonally, no inconsiderable part at least of its later stages. 
It may serve as an index, if nothing more, for those who 



HENRY CLAY. 6 

are disposed to study his character and hfe more minutely 
hereafter. Mr. Clay, fortunately or unfortunately, was not 
of a nature to take any particular pains to keep the rec- 
ord of his own words or thoughts or acts, and he may 
thus fare less well with posterity than many of his in- 
feriors. But his Life and Speeches have been worked up 
by others in at least two separate forms of two volumes 
each, and his Private Correspondence has been collected 
in still another volume ; while the Debatee, and Journals, 
.and Annals of Congress, and the pages of almost every 
biographical dictionary, contain ample reports and details 
of his sayings and doings. 

Born in Hanover County, Virginia, in a neighborhood 
called "The Slashes," on the 12th of April, 1777, — less 
than a year after the Declaration of American Indepen- 
dence, — he would seem to have imbibed with his mother's 
milk the bold, independent spirit which pervaded the 
Colonies at that critical period. Bereaved of his father 
Avhen only four years of age, he was left to pick up such 
crumbs of education as could be found on the earthen 
floor of a log school-house, under the tuition of a master 
of intemperate habits. The, only tradition of his early 
childhood presents him on a bare-backed pony, with a 
rope-halter instead of a bridle, riding fearlessly and some- 
times furiously, to a neighboring mill, to replenish his 
mother's meal-bag as often as it was empty. And thus 
young Harry became famous for twenty miles the country 
round about, as "the Mill Boy of the Slashes," — a nick- 
name which served his supporters a good turn afterwards, 
in more than one presidential campaign. We trace him 
next to Richmond, keeping accounts in a retail variety 
shop. But not long afterwards we find him employed as 
a copyist for the Clerk of the Courts and the Attorney- 
General of the State, and as an occasional amanuensis for 
the illustrious Virginian Chancellor, George Wythe. In 
these relations he must have acquired the singularly neat 



4 HENRY CLAY. 

and almost feminine hand, which may be seen alike in his 
earlier and later autographs. He was never one of those 
statists, of whom Shakspeare tells us, who " held it a base- 
ness to write fair." In these relations, too, he undoubt- 
edly became imbued with that love of legal study, on 
which he entered seriously at nineteen years of age, and 
which he prosecuted so successfully as to obtain a license 
to practise law before he was twenty-one. Above all, in 
these relations he acquired the friendship and confidence 
of George Wythe, who was not only one of the Signers 
of the Declaration of Independence and a distinguished 
member of the Virginia Convention which ratified the 
Federal Constitution, of which he was an earnest advocate 
and supporter, but who signalized his love of human free- 
dom by emancipating all his negroes before his own death, 
and making provision for their subsistence. The influ- 
ence of such a friendship and such an example could 
hardly fail to manifest itself in the future life of any one 
who enjoyed it. It was better thiin an education. 

Youno' Clav, however, was not destined to remain lono; 
within the innnediate reach of that influence, as, some 
years before the death of the great Chancellor, he had re- 
moved from Richmond and entered on a new scene of life. 
His mother, who had been married again after a widows- 
hood of ten years, had changed her residence to Ken- 
tucky, then a new Connnonwealtli, just separated from 
Virginia, whither her son, who w^as devotedly attached to 
her, soon followed, and opened a law office in Lexington. 
Thenceforward he was to be known as the Great Ken- 
tuckian. Thenceforward the gallant 3^oung State, with 
whose earliest fortunes he had thus identified himself, was 
to have no more brilliant orator, no more distino-uished 
statesman, no more beloved and devoted citizen, than 
Henry Clay. 

Entering her Legislature, as the representative of Fay- 
ette County, in 1803, at twenty-six years of age, he so 



HENRY CLAY. 



commended himself to the favor and confidence of his 
fellow-members, that, before three years had elapsed, he 
was chosen by them to fill a vacancy in the Senate of the 
United States ; and, if the tradition be correct, he actually 
took his seat in that exalted body before he had quite 
attained the age of thirty, prescribed by the Constitution 
of the United States. 

While welcoming Mr. Clay to Boston, as Chairman of a 
Youno: Men's Committee, in the autumn of 1833, T found 
that he was indisposed to have this early breach of Con- 
stitutional requirements alluded to, or inquired into, with 
too much particularity. " I think, my young friend," 
said he, " we may as well omit any reference to my sup- 
posed juvenile indiscretions." He was then of an age to 
pride himself more on his ardent devotion to the Con- 
stitution, than on any precocious personal popularity, or 
any premature political advancement. 

This first term of service at Washington was a brief 
one, ending with the existing session. But it did not ex- 
pire until he had made his mark on the national calendar 
as an earnest and powerful advocate of internal improve- 
ments. During the following year, he had returned to 
the Legislature of Kentucky, and was chosen Speaker of 
the House of Representatives of that State. But in 1809, 
he was again sent to Washington, to fill another vacancy 
in the United States Senate, where he served with dis- 
tinction for two years. And now, in 1811, he enters the 
field of a still more conspicuous and responsible service, 
having been elected Speaker of the House of Representa- 
tives of the United States, almost by acclamation, on the 
very first day of his taking his seat as a member of that 
body. 

Mr. Clay was six times elected Speaker of the House, 
and held that lofty position longer than any one in the 
history of our country, before or since. No abler or 
more commanding presiding officer has ever sat in a 



6 HENRY CLAY. 

Speaker's Chair on eitlier side of tlie Atlantic. Prompt, 
clitiiiined, resolute, fearless, he had a combination of in- 
tellectual and physical qualities which made him a natural 
ruler over men. There \vas a magnetism in his voice and 
manner which attnicted the willing attention, acquiescence, 
and even obedience, of those over whom he presided. lie 
was no painstaking student of Parliamentary Law, but 
found the rules of his governance more frequently in his 
own instinctive sense of what was practicable and proper, 
than in natsell's Precedents, or in Jefferson's Manual. 
He was, in some sense, a law unto himself, and could he 
have bent himself to compose or compile a Code of Pro- 
ceeding for the House over w^hich he presided, its Rules 
and Orders might have escaped the chaotic confusion 
from which so many vain efforts have been made of late 
years to extricate them. 

He betrayed to me one of the characteristic secrets of 
his success, more than thirty years afterwards, when I had 
the honor of occupying the same Chair. " I have atten- 
tively observed your course as Speaker," said he to me 
one day, most kindly, " and I have heartily approved it. 
But let me give you one hint from the experience of the 
oldest survivor of your predecessors. Decide — decide 
jwomj^tly — cind never give your reasons for the decision. 
The House will sustain your decisions, but there will 
always be men to cavil and quarrel about your reasons." 

Mr. Clay's terms of the Speakership, beginning in 1811 
and ending in 1825, were more than once interrupted by 
other and not less important public avocations. He re- 
signed the Chair in January, 1814, on his appointment, 
by President Madison, as one of the Five Commissioners 
to Ghent, to negotiate the treaty which resulted in the 
peace between Great Britain and the United States in 
1815. John Quincy Adams, Albert Gallatin, Jonathan 
Russell, and the elder James A. Bayard, were his col- 
leagues in that memorable negotiation. No one has ever 



HENRY CLAY. 7 

questioned the great importance of Mr. Clay's services 
on that Commission. He had been the leader of the War 
Party on the floor of Congress, and had been more instru- 
mental than any other man in bringing about the Declara- 
tion of War. His duties as Speaker never prevented him 
from taking an active part in the debates when the House 
was in Committee of the Whole, and his voice at that 
period was as commanding on the floor as it was in the 
Chair. So ardent and strenuous was he in demandinu^ 
that the rights of his country on the ocean should be 
vindicated, and the wrongs of her sailors and her trade 
redressed, even by an appeal to arms, and so much confi- 
dence did he inspire in his own readiness, courage, and 
capacity to take any part which might be assigned to him 
in the conduct of the war which he advocated, that Pres- 
ident Madison is well understood to have contemplated, 
at one moment, offering him the command of the Ameri- 
can Army. Clay had many of the attributes of a great 
soldier, and might perchance have won as distinguished a 
name in the field as he did in the forum. But the hio;her 
and nobler offices of peace were happily reserved for him, 
and he for them. 

Re-elected to the Speakership, on his return from 
Ghent, he resigned it again in 1820, owing to the pres- 
sure of his private affairs ; but he retained his seat as a 
member of the House, and took a leading part, from time 
to time, in the great " Missouri Compromise " debate of 
that period. Indeed, to him, more than to any other man, 
has always been ascribed the passage of that memorable 
measure, — one of the landmarks of American History, — 
which limited Slavery hy the latitude of 36° 30'. Mr. 
Benton, in his '• Thirty Years' View," says : " Mr. Clay 
has been often complimented as the author of the Com- 
promise of 1820, in spite of his repeated declaration to 
the contrary ; but he is the undisputed author of the final 
settlement of the Missouri Controversy in the actual ad- 



8 * HENRY CLAY. 

mission of the State." That was the first great contro- 
versy which threatened to bring about the estabUshment 
of geographical parties, so emphatically deprecated by 
Washington in his Farewell Address, — parties divided by 
a Slavery and Anti-Slavery line, and •' squinting," if not 
looking directly, towards a dissolution of the Union, or an 
attempt to dissolve it by civil war. It is, however, a 
most striking fact in our subsequent political history, that 
the Compromise thus effected, and which was so vehe- 
mently opposed and denounced by the great mass of the 
Northern people and their Representatives at the time, 
came at last, in the process of time and chance and 
change, to be counted as one of the special securities and 
safeguards of the Free States against the unlimited exten- 
sion of Slavery, and that its mad repeal was the subject 
of even more indignant and violent agitation and remon- 
strance by the North, in 1854, than its original adoption 
had been, in 1820. Few persons who knew Mr. Clay will 
hesitate to say that it never would have been repealed, 
had he survived, in health and strength, to take part in 
the controversies of that day. Douglas would not have 
dared to propose it in his presence. And no one can fail 
to perceive and admit that the immediate result of that 
repeal was precisely what its passage was designed to 
prevent, — the formation of geographical parties, with a 
fatal inclination, as it proved, towards civil war. 

It was during the last days of the debate on this Mis- 
souri Bill, in 1821, that Mr. Clay was wrought up to such 
a pitch of impatience and impetuosity, that, having been 
twice thwarted by the technical ruling of his successor in 
the Chair, he was heard vociferating in tones that none 
but he could command : " Then I move to suspend all 
the rules of the House — Away Avitli them ! Is it to be 
endured that we shall be trammelled in our action by 
mere forms and technicalities at a moment like this, when 
the peace, and perhaps the existence, of the Union is at 



HENEY CLAY. 9 

stake ? " It was well said by one of his best friends, that 
I he carried his point literally by storm. 

Mr. Clay was once more elected Speaker in 1823, and 
I held the Chair during the whole of the Eighteenth Con- 
1 gress. At its close, in 1825, he was called to enter on a 
I new field of service, as Secretary of State to President 
John Qiiincy Adams. His appointment to that office, and 
his ready acceptance of it, gave occasion to a barefaced 
charge of " bargain and corruption," which occupied no 
small space, for several years, among the partisan crim- 
inations and clamors of the period. No one in these days 
would give a second sober thought to such a charge. The 
characters of the two men, as now universally recognized, 
are a sufficient refutation of the scandal ; while the more 
recent examples of trading and " dickering " in public 
offices, both State and National, have left this stale allega- 
tion against Mr. Clay and Mr. Adams — even if it had not 
been long ago exploded as false and groundless — alto- 
gether too small and insignificant a matter to be recalled, 
except in the way of renewed warning that the brightest 
names may for the moment be maliciously tarnished. 
" Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not 
escape calumny." 

It may not be without interest to recall what Mr. 
Adams himself said on the subject, in reply to a com- 
plimentary address or letter at the close of his administra- 
tion in 1829. " Upon Mr. Clay," said he, " the foulest 
slanders have been showered. Long known and appre- 
ciated, as successively a member of both branches of your 
National Legislature, as the unrivalled Speaker, and, at the 
same time, most efficient leader of debates in both of them, 
as an able and successful negotiator for your interests in 
war and in peace with foreign powers, and as a powerful 
candidate for the highest of your trusts, the Department 
of State itself was a station which, by its bestowal, could 
confer neither profit nor honor upon him, but upon which 



10 HENEY CLAY. 

lie has sliecl unfading honor by the manner in which he 
has tliscliarged its duties. Prejudice and passion have 
charged hini Avith obtaining that office by bargain and 
corruption. Before you, my fellow-citizens, in the pres- 
ence of our country and of Heaven, I pronounce that 
charge totally unfounded. This tribute of justice is due 
from me to liim, and I seize with pleasure the opportunity, 
offered me by your letter, of discharging the obligation. 

" As to my motives for tendering to him the Department 
of State when I did, let that man who questions them 
come forward. Let him look around among statesmen 
and leo-islators of this nation and of this dav. Let him 
then select and name the man whom, by his pre-eminent 
talents, by his splendid services, by his ardent patriotism, 
by his all-embracing public spirit, by his fervid eloquence 
in behalf of the rights and liberties of mankind, by his 
long experience in the affairs of the Union, foreign and 
domestic, — a President of the United States, intent only 
upon the honor and welfare of his country, ought to have 
preferred to Henry Clay. Let him name the man, and then 
judge you, my fellow-citizens, of my motives." 

In immediate connection wdtli this grand testimony and 
tribute by Mr. Adams, it may be well to recall, also, what 
Mr. Clav himself said to his own fellow-citizens and friends 
at Lexington, in 1842 : "I defy my enemies to point out 
any act or instance of my life in which I have sought the 
attainment of olHce l)v dishouoraljle or unworthv means. 
Did 1 display inordinate ambition when, under the ad- 
ministration of Mr. Madison, I declined a foreign mission 
of the lirst grade, and an executive department, both of 
which lie successively, and kindly tendered to me? or 
wlien, under that of his successor, Mr. Monroe, I was first 
importuned (as no one knows better than that sterling 
old patriot, Jonathan Robbins, now threatened, as the 
pa])ers tell us, with expulsion from an ofHce which was 
never filled with luoi-e honesty and uprightness, because 



HENRY CLAY. 11 

lie declines to be a servile instrument) to accept a secre- 
tary-ship, and was afterwards offered a carte blanche of all 
the foreign missions ? At the epoch of the election of 
1825, I believe no one doubted at Washington that, if I 
had felt it my duty to vote for General Jackson, he would 
have invited me to take charge of a department. And 
such, undoubtedly, Mr. Crawford would have done if he 
had been elected." 

This is a most important piece of autobiography, and 
supplies facts in Mr. Clay's career which might not have 
been obtained from anv other source than his own con- 
fessions and assertions. 

And now it may well be questioned whether the foreign 
relations of our country have ever been under the control 
of more accomplished and capable men than when John 
Quincy Adams was President, with Henry Clay as his 
Secretary of State. Mr. Adams, we need not say, was 
thoroughly versed in dijDlomacy, having been our Minister 
at several Courts successively, including Berlin, St. Peters- 
burg, and London, before he was Secretary of State for 
eight years under President Monroe. Mr. Clay, meantime, 
as we have already seen, had been associated with him at 
Ghent, and had exhibited the highest sagacity and ability 
in the discussion and direction of our policy towards other 
countries. South American and European, as a member of 
Congress. Together they combined the largest experience, 
and the greatest vigilance, energy, and skill. The treaties 
negotiated by Mr. Clay, during his term of four years, are 
believed to have exceeded in number all that had been 
negotiated by other Secretaries during the previous thirty- 
five years of our constitutional history. 

The period was one of peculiar interest, in view of the 
great political changes which were taking place in our 
own American hemisphere. Brazil, in 1825, was finally 
severed from Portuguese dominion, and Buenos Ayres, 
Colombia, Mexico, Chili, Central America, and Peru were 



12 HENRY CLAY. 

just assuming their positions as independent nations. 
The colonial connection between America and Europe 
^Yas thus in process of complete dissolution. The Panama 
Congress was in immediate prospect, and Mr. Clay's in- 
structions and letters on that subject are among the most 
interesting and notable State Papers in our archives. As a 
representative in Congress, in 1818, 1820, and 1822, he had, 
indeed, taken the lead in urging upon our Government 
the immediate recognition of the new South American 
States, then struggling bravely to establish and maintain 
their independence, and in assuring them of the warm 
sympath}^ of our own Republic. He was earlier than 
George Canning himself, in "calling them into being." 
Richard Rush, in writing to him from London, in 1825, 
where he was then our Minister, justly criticises the 
arrogant self-laudation of Mr. Canning on this subject, 
— which Earl Grey had only ridiculed as a " frivolous 
and empty boast," — and says: "If Earl Grey had been 
better informed he would have said that it was you who 
did most to call them into being. ... The South Ameri- 
cans owe to you, more than to anj^ other man in either 
hemisphere, their independence, — you having led the 
way to our acknowledgment of it. This is truth, — this 
is history. Without our acknowledgment of it, England 
would not have taken the step to this day." Mr. Clay 
was thus ready and resolved, on assuming the portfolio 
of Secretary of State, to enter into treaties with these 
new republics at the earliest moment, and Mr. Adams was 
no less resolved and ready for such a step. 

Retiring from public service at the close of Mr. Adams's 
administration in 1829, Mr. Clay now returned to his Ken- 
tucky home and to his lawj^er's office at Lexington. His 
health, however, had of late been by no means satisfactory. 
Indeed, as early as April, 1828, Mr. Adams is found saying 
in liis recently published Diary or Memoirs: "Mr. Clay 
told me that the state of his health was such that he 



HENET CLAY. 13 

should be compelled to resign his office. It was becoming 
impossible for him to discharge its duties, and he could 
not consent to hold an office without discharging its duties. 
. . . His weakness was constantly increasing. His dis- 
order is a general decay of the vital powers, a paralytic 
torj^idity and numbness, which began at the lower ex- 
tremity of his left limb, and from the foot has gradually 
risen up the leg, and now approaches the hip. . . . 
Governor Barbour and Mr. Southard spoke of the condition 
of Mr. Clay's health, and Mr. Southard said he doubted 
whether he would live a month longer." It is not sur- 
prising, therefore, to find him opening his first speech in the 
Senate of the United States, after his return to Washino;ton, 
in January, 1832, by saying : " I am getting old. I feel 
but too sensibly and unaffectedly the effects of approaching 
age." But he had then hardly reached his fifty-fifth year. 
Great efforts were still before him, and he was soon in- 
volved in some of the most momentous and excitins; con- 
troversies of his life. His speeches on " The American 
System," on the distribution of the proceeds of the Public 
Lands, on the rechartering of the United States Bank, on 
the removal of the Government Deposits from that Bank, 
on the Sub-Treasury Scheme, and on other important 
measures of public policy, domestic and foreign, followed 
each other at no long intervals between 1832 and 1842, 
showing no diminished power or.flagging energies, and now 
filling a whole volume of his collected works. But, early 
in this period, he signalized himself especially as the pro- 
poser and adA^ocate of what is known historically as " The 
Compromise Tariff of 1833," when he brought his mar- 
vellous parliamentary skill and j)ractical tact once more to 
the rescue of the peace of the country, and the preven- 
tion of civil war. 

It was the period of South Carolina Nullification, and 
although Webster's immortal reply to Hayne, and General 
Jackson's grand Union Proclamation, had left no doubt on 



14 HEXRY CLAY. 

uhicli side the Aveiglit of argument and the preponderance 
of ]K)wer were to be found, South Carohna Avas neither 
convinced nor intimidated, and there was serious reason 
f«jr ap[)rehending that she and some of her sister South- 
ern States were willing and eager to plunge the nation 
into a rash and wanton conflict of arms. Whatever dif- 
ferences of opinion there may have been at the time, or 
may be still, as to the expediency of Mr. Clay's interposi- 
tion, or as to the precise measure by which it ^vas accom- 
plished, history w^ill never fail to bear witness to the 
patriotism, the skill, and the unsurpassed power, with which 
he devised and carried through his conciliatory policy in 
that emergency. In 1833, as in 1820, he was the Great 
Pacificator of the country. To him, certainly, more di- 
rectly than to any other one man, the country was thus a 
second time indebted for the preservation of its domestic 
peace. 

During the last tw'o years of this decade, betw^een the 
lamented death of President Harrison and the spring of 
1842, Mr. Clay was incessantly engaged, in the Senate, in 
combating the course of President Tyler, who, as he main- 
tained, had betrayed the party by which he was chosen 
Vice-President, and had taken advantage of an accidental 
succession to the Executive Chair to thwart and veto the 
very measures which he was virtually pledged to sanction. 
No one can recall those years without regretting the arbi- 
trary and imperious spirit w^hich Mr. Clay occasionally ex- 
hibited at that period, nor yet without admitting and ad- 
miring the masterly manner in which he led his party in 
Congress, from step to step, and from da}'' to day. If his 
indiu-nation sometimes o-ot the better of his discretion, 
there arc those who think that it found ample apology 
in the ciiciiiiistauces of the case. Put he became weary 
at last of so uiiicli iiicffectual strife, and. on tlie 31st of 
Mai'cli. IS 12. he witliilrcw from the Senate, as he thought 
and said. •• liiially and for ever." In his ^'aledictory Ad- 



HEXKY CLAY. 



15 



dress to the Senate, delivered on that dav, which was 
quite a field-da}', and certain!}^ a most dramatic as well 
as historical occasion, he used the following apologetic 
language : '" That my nature is warm, my temper ardent, 
my disposition, especially in relation to the puljlic service, 
enthusiastic, I am fully read}^ to own ; and those who sup- 
pose that I have been assuming the dictatorship have 
only mistaken for arrogance or assumption that fervent 
ardor and devotion which is natural to my constitution, 
and which I may have displayed Avith too little regard to 
cold, calculating, and cautious prudence, in sustaining and 
zealously supporting the measures of policy which I have 
presented and proposed." His frank and chivalrous bear- 
ing overcame his opponents, — he had no enemies to be 
overcome, — and both Congress and the whole country 
felt deeply that a great and almost irreparable void had 
been created in the National Councils. There was a gen- 
eral willingness at the instant that he should have a 
temporary rest and relaxation after such continuous and 
exhausting labors ; but a growing and widening sentiment 
was soon manifested, in every quarter, that so much ex- 
perience, ability, and patriotism could not be altogether 
spared from the public service. 

And now, at last, Mr. Clay seemed to be in a fair way 
to receive that national recognition and promotion of 
which he had been so long ambitious, and which he so 
eminently deserved. He had, indeed, received the elec- 
toral votes of Kentucky, Ohio, and Missouri, with four 
votes from the Electoral Colleu-e of New York, as Ions; 
ago as the Presidential Election of 1824 ; and again, in 
1832, six States had cast their electoral votes for him, — 
forty-nine votes in all. But now, in 1844, he was formally 
nominated as the candidate of the great AVhio- Partv of 
the United States, and with a Democratic candidate op- 
posed to him, whose name was hardly remembered out of 
his own neighborhood, and who had little or nothing of 



16 HENRY CLAT. 

personal weight or prestige in the nation at large. The 
result of the election afforded the first example, so often 
reproduced in later years, of the advantage enjoyed by a 
candidate who has said little, done Httle, and made few 
enemies, over one who has been constantly in the public 
eve, never shrinking from responsibility, and never failing 
to take a decided part in every controversy*. Indeed, no 
more serious discouragement to great aljilities and great 
services, as qualifications and recommendations for liigh 
office, was ever experienced than in the preference given 
to Mr. Polk over Mr. Clay in 1844. The country has 
never recovered from the pernicious influence of that ex- 
ample. Nor were the immediate practical consequences 
of the result less mischievous. The Mexican War, to 
name nothing else, was among the first fruits of Mr. 
Clay's defeat, and not a few of those who opposed him, 
on anti-slavery or free-soil grounds, saw too late what 
might have been prevented by his election. 

The excellent Theodore Frelinghuvsen, of New Jersey, 
was the candidate for the Vice-Presidency on the ticket 
with Mr. Clay. An extract from his letter to Mr. Clay, 
dated from New York, the morning after the election, 
Nov. 0, 1844, will afford a vivid and just idea of the 
impression produced by the result, as well as of the man- 
ner in which it was accomplished : — 

" My dear Sir, — I address you this morning with verj' dif- 
ferent feelings from my expectations a few weeks ago. The 
alliance of the foreign vote, and that most impracticable of all 
organizations, the Abolitionists, have defeated the strongest na- 
tional vote ever given to a presidential candidate. The Whigs 
in this city and State have struggled most nobly. All classes of 
American citizens have ardently, cordially, and with the freest 
siicrifices, contended for your just claims to patriotic confidence ; 
and could you this morning behold the depression of spirits and 
sinking of hearts that j)ervade the community, I am sure that 
you woidd ftM'l. • Well, in very truth, my defeat has been the 
occasi(»n of a more precious tribute and vindication than even 
tlu* niiijority uf numbers.' 



HENRY CLAY. 



17 



" The Abolitionists were inimically obstinate, and seemed 
resolved to distinguish their importance, right or wrong. The 
combmation of adverse circumstances has often struck me in the 
progress of the canvass. At the South, I was denounced as an 
AboHtionist, rank and uncompromising. Here, the Abolitionists 
have been rancorous in their hostility. A short time since, AVil- 
liam Jay (of illustrious name) assailed me in his Anti-Slavery 
prints, by a harsh, unchristian, and intolerant article, in the form 
of a letter addi'essed to me, but sent to the winds. Its object 
was, no doubt, to cbive the party together, and it had, I suppose, 
some influence that way, although it was too bitter and irrational 
to accomplish much. And then the foreign vote was tremen- 
dous. More than three thousand, it is confidently said, have 
been naturalized in this city alone, since the first of October. 
It is an alarming fact, that this foreign vote has decided the 
great questions of American policy, and coimteracted a nation's 
gratitude. 

" But, my dear Sir, leaving this painful subject, let us look 
away to brighter and better prospects, and surer hopes, in the 
promises and consolations of the Gospel of our Saviour. . . . 

" I remain, with sincere esteem and best wishes, 

" Your friend, 

" Theodore Feelinghtttsen"." 

John Quincy Adams, too, writing to Mr. Clay from 
Wiisliington, on the following 4tli of Jannary, says as 
follows : — 

" I have yet to acknowledge the receipt of a very kind and 
friendly letter from you, written shortly before the unexpected 
and mauspicious issue of the recent presidential election. It has 
been, on many accounts, painful to me ; but on none more, or so 
much, as on the dark shade which it has cast upon our prospects 
of futurity. 

" I had hoped that under your guidance the country would 
have recovered from the downward tendency into which it has 
been sinking. But the glaring frauds by which the election 
was consummated afford a sad presentiment of what must be ex- 
pected hereafter. We must hope that a merciful Providence 
will yet preside over the destinies of our country, and avert the 
calamities with which she is threatened." 



18 nEXRY CLAY. 

Mr. Clay remained in contented retirement for four or 
five 3'ears after this defeat, but, in 1849, he suffered him- 
self to be once more elected to the Senate of the United 
States, and took his seat in that body again as a member of 
the Thirty-first Congress. That brave old soldier and 
sterling patriot, Zachary Taylor, had just then been in- 
augurated as President, and the great controversies con- 
nected with the admission of California as a State, the 
organization of the Territories of New Mexico and Utah, 
and the Fugitive Slave Law, were close at hand. Mr. 
Clay was now on the verge of the seventy-third year of 
his age, and might have been pardoned for assuming the 
role of an adviser and counsellor, rather than that of a i 
leader in debate. But it was not in his nature to spare 
himself, or to play a second part. He could not see a \ 
difficulty without making an attempt to solve it, and he 
always j^referred to propose measures of his own, rather 
than to fall in to the support of what had been devised 
and concerted by others. There were those among the 
public men of that day who believed, and there are some 
who still believe, that if he had looked with more favor on 
the policy of General Taylor, and had found it consistent 
with his own convictions to lend his powerful and pre- 
eminent influence to the support of that policy, the conn- ! 
try might have been carried through the crisis which was 
upon it with less agitation and less turbulence, and that 
fewer questions might have remained to excite and ex- 
asperate the contending sections of the Union. 

But no one will question the earnest patriotism which 
governed his course, or fail to appreciate the ability, 
energy, and eloquence, which he displayed in this last 
great controversy of his life. The old fire was once more 
kindled in his veins, and, lookinsc back to the davs when 
he had saved the peace of the countr}'^ in 1820, and again 
in 1833, by masterly measures of compromise, he did not 
doubt for a moment that it was reserved for him still 



HENRY CLAY. 19 

again to invoke successfully a spirit of conciliation and 
concord, and to arrange a scheme of adjustment which 
should not only avert the dangers of civil war at the 
moment, but leave all vexed questions in a safe and set- 
tled state for the future. The bill which he prepared for 
ithis purpose, and which embraced under a single enacting 
jclause, the admission of California as a State, with Terri- 
torial organizations for New Mexico and Ut?^h, without 
any Wilmot Proviso, or restriction as to Slavery, together 
with an arrangement of the disputed boundaries of Texas, 
— and which, from the variety and multiplicity of its 
provisions, was derisively known as " The Omnibus," — 
failed of its passage in the form in which it was originally 
presented. It was taken to pieces, bit by bit, in the Senate, 
\mtil nothino; but Utah remained of it. But the scattered 
fragments were gathered up separately in both branches, 
and were finally enacted. With them, or immediately 
after them, the Fugitive Slave Bill, also, but not in the 
form or with the provisions which he had proposed, be- 
came a law. Not one of the great leaders of parties in 
the Senate voted on that bill. Calhoun was dead. Web- 
ster was in the State Department. The names of Cass, 
Benton, Douglas, Dickinson, and Seward, are absent from 
the roll. Mr. Clav himself did not remain in Washington 
to take part in the passage of this measure, or to witness 
the successive steps by which his measures were finally 
adopted. He had overtasked his strength in battling for 
them in the aggregate, during the winter, spring, and 
midsummer heats, of that memorable session ; and, as 
soon as the fate of his original Bill was sealed, he resorted 
to Newport to repair his exhausted energies. Not, how- 
^ ever, until he had made a speech which will be noticed 
presently. He returned before the close of the session, 
and was again in his seat during the following session. 
Meantime, he had made a visit to Havana, and to New 
Orleans, in hope of shaking off his cough and reinvigorat- 

, I 

r 



20 HENRY CLAY. 

ino- liis system. But he soon found himself disabled foi 
takin*:: further active part in the duties of the Senate, anc 
sent in his resijznation to take effect on the 6th of Sep 
tcnihcr, 1852. When that day arrived, he had been ir 
liis <riave for more than two months, having died ii 
\Vasliiii--ton, on the i)revious 29th of June, in the seventy 
sixth yc.-ir of his age. 

Ml- ("lav, as we liave seen, was associated distinctb' 

and [.lonrmcutly, in his early political life, with the Dem 

ocralic i)arty of Jelferson and Madison ; and even afte 

the administration of President Monroe had ushered ii 

what was called " tlie era of good feeling," and the oh 

part\- lines were somewhat effaced, he would still hav.^ 

counted himself nothing but a Democrat. But new issue 

and new interests were developed by the war with Eng 

land, and he soon became identified with the advocacy o 

a Protective TaritT, Internal Improvements, and the gen 

cral policy which was designated l)y him as " The Amer 

can System," and of which he was the acknowledge 

author and father. He was thus gradually alienated fror 

manv of his Democratic associates, or they from bin 

whiU' he at once a.'^sumed a foremost place among thos 

who, after bearing the name of National Republicans for 

few vears, became known to the country and the world a 

Whigs. Mr. Clay was, indeed, emphatically the leader cj 

what is now spoken i>f historically as the Old Whig Part 

of the Tuited States. Even Webster, with all the surpass 

ing power which he hrougbt to its support, could hardl 

at anv time have contested the leadership with him, eve 

had he been dispo.sed to do so. Webster was, indeed, ii 

local. New England, head and pride. But take the com 

trv through, — North. South, East, and West, — Clay wi 

acknowledged and recognizcfl as its chief. lie was i 

caudidate for the l*re>i(K'nc\ while it was vet in embry« 

in 1S;>2, anil again, after it was fnlly Hedged, in 184^ 

And though he failed of the nomination in 1839 an 



HENPtY CLAY. 21 

1848, lie was still the most influential member of the 
party by which General Harrison and General Taylor 
were elected Presidents of the United States. The 
iwitches might have whispered to Clay, as they did to 
Banquo, " Thou shalt make Presidents, though thou be 
•none." Certainly, if the Old Whig Party is to have any 
individual impersonation in history, it must find it in 
Henry Clay of Kentucky, and by him, and his general 
principles and policy, it may well consent to be judged. 

And what was this Whig Party which he led so gal- 
lantly, before disappointed ambition, and inconsiderate 
philanthrop}^, and headlong fanaticism, and secret "Know- 
nothing lodges," and corrupt coalitions, at one end of the 
Union, conspired with mad and monstrous schemes in the 
interests of African Slavery at the other end, — Kansas, 
Nebraska, and the rest, — to draw off so many of its 
members into new ranks, and doom it to a lingering 
death ? What was the party of which Henry Clay and 
Daniel Webster were so long the shining lights, and of 
Avhicli Abraham Lincoln, to name no other name, was 
lono- one of the lesser lummaries ? It was a Consti- 
tutional Union Party, Avhich regarded the Union of the 
States, and the Constitution, as the only formal condition 
and bond of that Union, things to be reverenced and 
maintained at all hazards. It was a Law and Order Party, 
which tolerated no revolutionary or riotous processes of 
reform. It was a Party of principle and purity, which 
consented to no corruption or traffic as a means of secur- 
ing office or success. It was a Conservative Party and 
yet a Party of Progress, which looked to the elevation of 
American labor, and the advancement of our national 
welfare, by a discriminating adjustment and an equitable 
collection of duties on imports, by an honest currency, by 
a liberal administration of the public lands, and by need- 
ful appropriations, from time to time, for the improve- 
ment of rivers and harbors. It was a Party of Peace, — 



22 IIEXRT CLAY. 

domestic peace and foreign peace, — opposed to ever 
lawless scheme of encroachment or aggrandizement, a 
home or abroad, and studiously avoiding whatever migh 
occasion internal commotion or external conflict. It Avas 
above all things, a National Party, extending over t\h 
whole country, and systematically renouncing and repu 
dialing all merely sectional organizations or issues. 

Such a party could, of course, have no. common cree( 
or platform on the subject of African Slavery, as that wa 
a subject then everywhere acknowledged to be utterl; 
beyond the pale of constitutional legislation, and of whicl 
the regulation and the very existence were wholly witliii 
the reserved rights of the separate States. This wa: 
most signally affirmed even as late as 1861, — after Mr 
Lincoln had been elected President by the Republicar 
Party, — by solemn resolutions of a great majority o 
Congress, and even by the adoption of a proposed amend- 
ment to the Constitution, to give fresh emphasis an( 
stronger enforcement to the original guaranties of tha 
instrument. The abolition of Slavery, as we all know 
could never have been legitimately accomplished by the 
nation, except as it actually was at last accomplished, — 
under the powers derived from the exigencies of war. 
But war, and especially civil war, was the evil of all 
others which Mr. Clay and the Whig Party were most 
earnest in deprecating, and most zealous in striving to 
avert. 

Mr. Clay, however, though a Southern man, was, as he 
stiid openly, in the Senate and elsewhere, " no friend to 
Slavery." lie recognized its wrongs from his earliest 
maturity, anil rendered himself obnoxious to the popular 
indignation in Kentucky by vainly urging the adoption 
of a gradual emancipation clause, in her first State Con- 
stitution iu 1708, — a provision which he is well under- 
stood to have counselled anew on the revision of her 
Constitution as late as 1849-50. He gave noble utter- 



HEXEY CLAY. - 23' 

nice to his feelings on this subject, in 1827, in a speech 
Ut the Annual Meeting of the American Colonization 
JSociety, of which he was so long the President, when 

le said : " If I could be instrumental in eradicatins; 

his deepest stain upon the character of our country, and 
removing all cause of reproach on account of it by for- 
eign nations; if I could only be instrumental in ridding 
of this foul blot that revered State which gave me birth, 
or that not less beloved State which kindly adopted me as 
her son, — I would not exchange the proud satisfaction 
iwhich I should enjoy, for the honor of all the trium23hs 
iGver decreed to the most successful conqueror." 

And when, at last, in 1839, he felt constrained to take 
a stand in the Senate against the course of the Abolitionists 
of that period, he clearly manifested that the dangers to 
the Union, and the perils of civil war, were the considera- 
tions which insj)ired and controlled his course. " Sir," 
said he, " I am not in the habit of speaking lightly of the 
possibility of dissolving this happy Union. The Senate 
knows that I have deprecated allusions, on ordinary oc- 
casions, to that direful event. The country will testify 
that, if there be any thing in the history of my public 
career worthy of recollection, it is the truth and sincerity 
of my ardent devotion to its lasting preservation. But 
we should be false in our allegiance to it, if we did not 
discriminate between the imaginary and real dangers by 
which it may be assailed. Abolition should no longer be 
regarded as an imaginary danger. The Abolitionists, let 
me suppose, succeed in their present aim of uniting the 
inhabitants of the Free States as one man, a<>:ainst the 

^ CD 

inhabitants of the Slave States. Union on the one side 
will beget union on the other. And this process of reci- 
procal consolidation will be attended with all the violent 
prejudices, embittered passions, and implacable animosities, 
which ever degraded or deformed human nature. A 
virtual dissolution of the Union will have taken place, 



11' 



c 



>I 



24 IIEXRY CLAY. 

Avliilst tlie forms of its existence remcain. The most ;a 
valuable element of union, mutual kindness, the feeling-g 
of symi)atliy, the fraternal bonds, which now happily s 
unite us, will have been extinguished for ever. One 
section will stand iu menacing and hostile array against 
the other. The collision of opinion will be quicklj^ 
followed by the clash of arms. 1 will not attempt to 
describe scenes which now happily lie concealed from 
our view. Abolitionists themselves Avould shrink back in 
dismay and horror at the contemplation of desolated fields, 
conllagrated cities, murdered inhabitants, and the over- 
throw of the fairest fabric of human government that ever 
rose to anmiate the hopes of civilized man." 

Such were the prophetic fears and forebodings of 
as brave a statesman as ever breathed, in view of the 
attempt to array sectional parties against each other on 
the single question of Slavery ; and the history of the 
last fifteen or tw'enty years has shown that they were i 
by no means groundless fears or exaggerated forebod- 
ings. They were such as might well have weighed 
heavily on the heart of so ardent a patriot as Henry Clay, 
and they furnish an ample explanation of his untiring 
eilorts in the cause of conciliation and compromise. Noth- 
ing could be more unjust than to stigmatize him as a 
Pro-Slavery man, or the Whig Party as a Pro-Slavery 
Party. There is not a shadow of truth in the charge that 
either that party or its great leader ever prostrated them- 
selves before wluit was called the Slave Power. Individ- 
umI members of the party, at the South or at the North, 
may have said or done things to give color to such a 
charge. P)ut from its earliest organization down even to 
tho.se last discouraging campaigns in 1852 and 1856 and 
18G0, when Clay and Webster were dvins: or dead, 
and when Winfield Scott and Millard Fillmore and John 
15ell Mild Kdward Everett were successively its candidates 
for I ill' Presidencv or the Yice-Presidencv, no such alle- 



HENRY CLAY. 



25 



ation against the Whig Part}- would have been just 
r true. It was the Constitution, the Union, and Peace 
5 the best hope of both, Avhich inspired their pohey and 
3tuated their course. Among the Whigs in the Free 
tates there were men as earnest and as sincere in their 
atred of Shivery and in their hopes for its ulthnate ex- 
nction, as any of those who made louder professions and 
ho hastened to unite themselves with distinctive Anti- 
la very parties; and even among its members in the 
outhern States there were not a few, like Mr. Clay him- 
;lf, who would eagerly have joined in any measures 
•oking towards gradual emancipation, which should not 
ave involved the violation of the Constitution, tlie dis- 
)lution of the Union, and civil war. Mr. Clay's personal 
>ve of human freedom was recognized by William Ellery 
banning — one of whose impressive sermons I took him 
) hear, at tha old Federal Street Church, in 1833 — 
hen he addressed to him his letter against the An- 
exation of Texas. It was recognized, too, by Joseph 
ohn Gurney, when he addressed to him his letters on 
[mancipation in the West Indies. He himself gave sig- 
al testimony to it, as we have seen, in relation to the 
onstitution of Kentuckv, and in his devotion to that 
luse of Colonization, which Abraham Lincoln himself, 
bile President of the United States, advocated and urged 
pon Congress and upon his Cabinet almost to the la- 
lented end of his life. Nor should it be forgotten, in 
ich a sketch as this, that, when the late William Lloyd 
arrison was imprisoned in Baltimore, Henry Clay is 
nderstood to have made an immediate though unsuccess- 
il effort to stand bail for his release. 

Mr. Clay was a person of singularly fascinating address 
lid magnetic qualities, attracting admirers and friends on 
very side. As he sometimes sauntered across the Senate 
ihamber, taking a pinch of snuff out of one friend's box, 
r offering his own box to another, he was a picture of 



26 HENRY CLAY. 

;if1'iil)ility and nonchalance. He had the genial, jaunty ai' 
of Lord Palmcrston. whose peer he would have been n 
a Cabinet Minister or in Parliament, had he chanced t 
have ])eon born an Englishman or an Irishman, insteai 
of an American. Like Palmerston, he could sometimel 
be "lofty and sour," and sometimes even rude, towan 
those who opposed him. He was so to Josiah Quincy, ij 
]8K3, as Jvhnund Quincy reminded us in his admirabli 
IJioLrraphv of his fatlier. He was so towards Albert Gallr 
tin. in 18o2, as Heniy Adams has more recently reminde 
us in his excellent Life of that eminent statesman. He wa 
so to llufus Choate, in 1841, in my own hearing, in th) 
Senate Chamber. But he was never slow in explanation 
and apology, and cherished no malice or resentmen 
towards any one. In his valedictory to the Senate, t 
which allusion has already been made, he nobly said 
" I may have often inadvertently or unintentionally mad 
use of language that has been offensive, and susceptibl 
of injurious interpretation, towards my brother Senatort 
If there be any here who retain wounded feelings c 
injiny or dissatisfaction produced on such occasions, 1 be:: 
to assure them that I now offer the amplest apolog^i 
for any departure on my part from the established rule! 
of ])arliamentary decorum and courtesy." He had thu 
Western, or it might as well be called the Euirlish, tastf 
for the tin-f. John Randol))h dared to allude to bin 
as a •• blackleg," in contrast to the "puritan" Adams, ii 
connection with the charge of bargain and corruption 
A duel was the consequence, which Mr. Clay, as well a 
his friends, always regretted, though neither party wa 
injured. Those were the days when English and America! 
celebrities alike. Canning and Castlereao^h and Wellino-toa 
as well as Haiuilton and Clay and Decatur, unhappih 
yichlcd to what was called the Code of Honor. Hi; 
lavoritc recreation for many years was a game of whist 
to which, at one period of his life, he was passionately 



HENRY CLAY. 27 

ddicted, — not for the stakes, if there were any, but for 
lie mere distraction and excitement of the game. 

There is a tradition that while he was on a visit to 
loston, in 181^, lodging at the old Exchange Coffee 
louse in Congress Street, a servant rushed into the 
arlor, in which he was at the whist-table with a few 
entlemen of the old school, and announced that the 
otel was on fire. " Oh, there will be time enough, I 
liink (cried Mr. Clay), to finish our game" ; and finish it 
hey did before the hotel was burned to the ground. A 
imilar tradition was current in Washington at a later 
leriod, that while Mr. Clay was Speaker, he and his 
riends had passed a whole night at cards, and were still 
oino* on with their g-ames Avhen the hour was close at 
land for the opening of the morning session of Congress. 
•AYait a few minutes, gentlemen," said Mr. Clay, "and I 
v^ill wash my face and hands and run down to the House 
nd call John W. Taylor to the chair, and then I will come 
»ack, and we will have another rubber." True or false, 
hese stories have a characteristic flavor. Mr. Clay was a 
vhole-souled man, who put his heart into whatever he set 
ibout. Whether it were a rubber of whist, or a canvass for 
he Presidency, or a compromise of contending sections, he 
vas tohis in ilUs. But, long before his death, I remember 
lis savino; that he had reduced his allowance of whist to 
b few hours on one evening of a week, when General 
5Cott, and Bodisco, the hospitable Russian Minister, and 
perhaps Archer of Virginia, helped him to dispel the 
)ppressive anxieties of the day. 

He was one of the most frank and direct of men, — 
lever concealing his opinions, nor ever shifting his course 
;o catch a momentary breeze. He scorned to seek popu- 
arity or preferment by the non-committalism of which 
there was a great example in his day. Still less would 
tie imitate those Alpine climbers who reach great heights 
Duly by following zigzag paths. A little more discreet 



28' HENRY CLAY. 

silence, a little more "masterly inactivity," or a little more 
ziixza":, Avoiild have carried him into the Executive Chair 
more than once. ]Uit he contented himself with the 
noble declaration,"! had rather be right than be Presi- 
dent," and persisted in pursuing as straight a path as 
that Pontick Sea, whose " compulsive course," as Shak- 
speare says, — 

" Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on 
To the Propontick and the Hellespont." 

No one requires to be told that Mr. Clny was a great 
orator. There was no art in his eloquence. He was as nat- 
ural and as grand as Patrick Henry or Daniel O'Connell. 
His prepared speeches were generally his least success- 
ful efforts. His works will not be consulted, like Web- 
ster's, for profound constitutional arguments or convincing 
logic, nor yet for brilliant metaphors or illustrations. 
He was eminently a man of action, and might be taken 
as an example of the old definition of eloquence by its 
greatest ancient master, — " action, action, action." There 
was a wonderful energy in all his utterances when they 
came from the impulse of the moment. He had a large 
heart, a dauntless courage, quick perceptions, a com- 
manding stature, a lofty and chivalrous bearing, an 
almost incomparable voice, and when called out by some 
immediate exigency, or stirred by some immediate emo- 
tion, or stung by some personal imputation, no orator of 
our land or of our age was more impressive or more 
powerful. He was not a man of much study or of great 
accomplishments or of general reading. The only book 
I ever heard him speak of with special admiration was 
Carlyle's Cromwell. He was in raptures with that, and 
was reading it from day to day during the stress of the 
Compromise contentions of 1850, and he seemed to be 
whetting his courage upon its pages for the warfare in 
which he was so strenuously engaged. He found in it 



IIENKV CLAY. 29 

the record of a Will not more iron than his own, and rec- 
ognized indoniital)le elements of character of Avhieli lie 
conld not have failed to be conscious. With a rich and 
ready command of language of his own. he was an infre- 
quent quoter of other men's words or thoughts, aiul cer- 
tainh' no accumulator of eiciiant extracts for the adoinuicnt 
of his speeches. Indeed, he was proverl>ial for hlundning 
over even the most familiar quotations from Shakspeaie. 
The late George Evans of Maine, one of the ablest Sena- 
tors ever sent to Washington bv a State which mav boast 
of a Peleg Sprague and a William Pitt Fessenden, or, 
indeed, by any other State in the Union, used to tell more 
than one amusing story of Mr. Clay's efforts in this line. 
" What is it," said Clay to him one day, " that Shaksj)eare 
saj's about a rose smelling as sweet — Write me down 
those lines, and be sure you get them exactly right, and 
let them be in a large legible hand." And so Mr. Evans 
having verified his memory, at Claj^'s request, by a resort 
to the Congressional Library, and having laid the lines 
in plain, bold letters on Mr. Clay's desk, — 

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose, 
By any other name would smell as sweet," — 

awaited the result. As the great statesman approached 
that part of his speech in which he was to apply them, 
there was an evident embarrassment. He fumbled over his 
notes for a while, then grasped the little copy with a con- 
vulsive effort, and at last ejaculated in despair: "A rose 
will smell the same, call it what you will." On another 
occasion he had fortified himself by recalling the exclama- 
tion of Hamlet, " Let the galled jade wince," — ])ut it 
was only after saying " unhung " and ''unstrung" that, on 
the third attempt, and by the ])rompting of a -friend, he 
made the Senate Cliamber ring with the true words, '' our 
withers are unwrunii:." 

CD 

I have heard Mr. Clav often, in the forum and at the 



30 HENRY CLAY. 

bar, in the Senate Chamber and in the Supreme-Court 
Eoom, as well as before larger or smaller popular assem- 
l)lies; but I recall two occasions, widely different in char- 
acter and widely distant from each other in date, which 
have left on my mind the deepest impression of that off- 
hand, natural, impulsive eloquence in which he was with- 
out a rival while he lived. 

One of those occasions, to which I have alluded already, 
was as long ago as 1833, just after the passage of his 
Tariff Compromise, and when he had visited Boston 
under somewhat peculiar circumstances. I was brought 
into daily association with him as Chairman of the Young 
Men's Committee of Eeception, and the first speech I 
ever made, after leaving college, Avas to welcome him 
to our city. He had steadfastly refused to make any 
formal speeches himself, and it was only a night or two 
before his departure that his lips were unsealed. The 
young men of Boston had offered him a pair of silver 
pitchers as a token of their admiration, and it was my 
privilege to present them to him. We had the drawing- 
rooms of the Tremont House for the occasion, and there 
were assembled in them many of our most distinguished 
citizens. Webster was there, among others, but the 
illness of his wife, or some other cause, compelled him to 
i-etire before the ceremonies had commenced. Some 
things had occurred, moreover, which were confidentially 
communicated to me, to excite Mr. Clay's feelings, and 
to make him eager for the opportunity of giving expres- 
sion to emotions which had been long pent up. There 
Avere no reporters, and only fifty or sixty hearers, all told. 
The rooms were not spacious. He had not a note for 
reference, nor had he contemplated any thing but the 
briefest and most formal acknowledgment of the gift. 
But, whatever had kindled it, " the fire burned, and he 
spoke with his mouth." No lava from a long-closed crater 
could have rushed in a more impetuous torrent, and he 



HEXKY CLAY. 31 

recalled to me at once John Adams's description of James 
Otis, as " a flame of fire." If walls ever had ears, accord- 
ing to the old proverb, those old ceilings of the Tremont 
Plouse drawing-rooms would have been vocal and vibrat- 
ing to the present hour with the utterances of that night. 
He described the considerations and circumstances imder 
which he had introduced, the Compromise Bill. He 
alluded emphatically to the opposition it had encountered 
in some New England quarters. He depicted the dangers 
of civil war which it had averted. He dwelt on the Union 
of the countr\' as the best hope of freedom throughout the 
world. After the lapse of forty-six years, I dare not at- 
tempt to recall the precise words or thoughts which were 
addressed to me on that occasion. But the tones still ring 
in my ears, and T can only bear witness to an impressive- 
ness of speech never exceeded, if ever equalled, within an 
experience of nearly half a century, during which I have 
listened to manv of the greatest orators on both sides of 
the Atlantic, including Brougham and Peel, the late Lord 
Derby and Macaulay, Guizot, Thiers, and Gladstone. 

The second occasion on which Mr. Clay's eloquence 
made so deep and lasting an impression on me was as 
late as the 1st of August, 1850, when I had the honor of 
beinsc a member of the Senate with him. The Com- 
promise Bill, which he had introduced, and for which 
he had battled so bravely for so many months, had been 
finally defeated in the Senate the day before, and a simple 
bill for the admission of California as a State was now 
under consideration. Wearied with work, exhausted by 
the heat, depressed by the failure of his cherished measure 
and by the apprehensions of danger for the country, Mr. 
Clay was just going to Newport for re.st and recreation. 
But some expressions of a threatening character caught 
his ear, and on the instant he took the floor. Of this 
speech we fortunately have a running report in the " Con- 
gressional Globe,*' and tlie following extracts will give 
some faint idea of its character : — 



32 HENEY CLAY. 

" I wish only to say a ffew words. We liaye presented to the 
country a measure of peace, a measure of tranquillity ; one which 
Mould liave harmonized, in my opinion, all the discordant feel- 
ings ^\ liich prevail. That measure has met Avith a fate not 
altogether unexpected, I admit, on my part, but one wliich, as it 
respects the country at large, I deplore extrenu-ly. For myself, 
personally, I have no cause of complaint. The majority of the 
Committee to which I belonged, have done their duty, their 
wliok^. duty, faithfully and perseveringly. If the measure has 
been defeated, it has been defeated by the extremists on the 
other side of the chamber and on this. I shall not proceed to 
inquire into the measure of responsibility whicli I incurred. 
All I mean to say upon that subject is, that we stand free and 
liberated from any responsibility of consequences. . . . 

" Now, Mr. President, I stand here in my place, meaning to 
be unawed by any threats, whether they come from individuals 
or from States. I should deplore, as much as any man, living or 
dead, that arms should be raised against the authority of the 
Union, either by individuals or by States. But, after all that has 
occurred, if any one Sftate, or a portion of the people of any 
State, choose to place themselves in military array against the 
Government of the Union, I am for trying the strength of the 
Government. lAjjplause in the galleries, immediately suppressed 
hy the Chair.'] I am for ascertaining whether we have got a 
Government or not, — practical, efficient, capable of maintain- 
ing its authority, and of upholding the powers and interests 
which belong to a Government. Nor, Sir, am I to be alarmed 
or dissuaded from any such course by intimations of the spilling 
of blood. If blood is to be spilt, by whose fault is it to be spilt ? 
Upon the supposition, I maintain it will be by the fault of those 
who choose to raise the standard of disunion, and endeavor to 
prostrate this Government ; and, Sir, when that is done, so long 
as it pleases God to give me a voice to express my sentiments, 
or an arm, weak and enfeebled as it may be by age, that voice 
and that arm will be on the side of my country, for the support 
of the general authority, and for the maintenance of the powers 
of this Union. [Applause in the galleries.] 

" The Presiding Officer. Order ! 

" INIr. Clay. Sir, I have done all, I am willing to do all, 
that is in the power of one man to do, to accommodate the differ- 
ences of the country. I have not been attached to any given 



HEXRT CLAf . 33 

form of settling our troubles and of restoring contentment to the 
Union. I was willing to take the measures united. I am willing 
now to pass them separate and distinct. . . . But whether 
passed or not, I repeat the sentiment, if resistance is attempted 
to any authority of the country by any State or any people of 
any State, I will raise my voice, my heart, my arm, in sup- 
port of the common authority of the General Government, Nor 
am I apprehensive of this idea, that blood is to be shed. From 
the bottom of my heart, I hope that it never will be shed. 
But if it is shed, who will be chargeable with the effusion of 
human blood? Those who attempt to prostrate the general 
authority, to raise the standard of disunion, and to destroy this 
Union by force. God knows I deprecate such an attempt. But 
if it occurs, I will be among the last who will give up the effort 
to maintain the Union in its entire, full, and vigorous authority. 
" Sir-, these thi-eats are not so alarming and so dangerous as 
gentlemen in their imagination may suppose. We have had an 
event of the kind in our history. When Washington Avas our 
President, — now sixty years ago, — the standard of insurrection 
was raised in the Avestem part of Pennsylvania. The army of 
the United States moved forward for the purpose of subduing 
it. . . . But the insurgents then — as disunionists and traitors 
always will — fled from the approach of the flag of the Union, 
supported by the authority of the Union, and countenanced by 
the Father of the Union." 

Mr. Clay rarely, if ever, produced a stronger impression 
at once of his power and of his patriotism, than in the 
entirely impromptu speech of which these extracts give 
but the feeblest idea. They are sufficient, however, to 
show what side he would have taken in any rebellion 
ao-ainst the Union, whenever it should have occurred, and 
to give ample w^arrant for the expression of a conviction, 
that, had he lived, in health and strength, until 18G1, and 
had the Whig Party survived and been in possession of 
the Government, the Rebellion which then occurred, if 
it had not been altogether repressed and arrested, would 
have been crushed under his lead, as surely as it was 
crushed by the Party which was then in power, — even 



o 



4 HENKY CLAY. 



though the abohtion of Slavery had been, as it proved 
to be at last, one of the necessities of the war. Indeed, 
it may safely be said henceforth, that the party in power, 
whichever and whatever it may be, wnll put down any 
rebellion which may arise in our land, from whatever 
cause or quarter, and will maintain the Government 
committed to its care, until, in the providence of God, 
that Government shall have been doomed to destruction. 
The Union never has depended, and never will depend, 
on the ascendancy of any particular Party. Washington, 
and the old Federal Party, as Mr. Clay said, put to flight 
the insurrectionists of Pennsylvania in 1794. Madison, 
;uid the old Democratic Part}^, would have effectively 
suppressed an}^ rising in Ncav England, in 1814, had the 
'' Five Striped Flag " been any thing but a myth. The 
old Democratic Party, again, under President Andrew 
Jackson, in 1832, would have enforced and made good 
his memorable sentiment, — " The Union, it must be pre- 
served," — had not Nullification been peaceably extin- 
guished. The old Whig Party, with General Taylor, 
or with Fillmore, in the Executive Chair, and with Web- 
ster at the helm, would have been as sufficient for any 
lelx'llion at the North, — if the execution of the Fugitive 
Slave Law had involved the necessity of employing mil- 
itary force in other parts of the country besides Bos- 
ton, — as President Lincoln and the Republican Party, 
happily proved themselves to be for the Great Rebellion 
at the South which it became their province to over- 
come. In other words, the people of the United States 
can be trusted to maintain, uphold, and defend their own 
institutions and their own Government, and will rally to 
their support in overwhelming masses, without distinction 
of party, as they did in 1861. It is an injustice to the 
people to claim the preservation of the Union at any time 
as a Party triumph ; and such a claim tends only to throw 
doubt, at home and abroad, on its preservation hereafter. 



HENEY CLAY. 



35 



Such, certainly, was the spirit of Henry Clay's noble de- 
fiance of parties and of sections, of individuals and of 
States, in 1850. 

It was in fresh remembrance of the two speeches of 
Mr. Clay, which have thus been recalled, — the first and 
one of the last which I heard from his own lips, — that I 
used the following language in an address to the Alumni 
of Harvard University, in 1852, just after his death, which 
I may borrow in summing up this cursory account of him 
as an orator, and which will at least show that my judg- 
ment has not been newly formed : — 

" I deem it to be no disparagement to any one, among the 
living or the dead, to express the opinion that, for immediate 
power over a deliberative or a popular audience, no man in our 
republic, since the republic has had a name or a being, has ever 
surpassed the great statesman of the West, over whom the grave 
is just closing. His words will not be referred to in future 
years, like those of some of his contemporaries, for profound ex- 
positions of permanent principles, or for luminous and logical 
commentaries upon the Constitution or the Laws. But for the 
deep impressiveness and almost irresistible fascination of his im- 
mediate appeals, for prompt, powerful, persuasiv^e, commanding, 
soul-stirring eloquence, upon whatever theme was uppermost in 
liis large, liberal, and patriotic heart, he has had no superior, and 
hardly an equal, in our country's history. Owing nothing to the 
schools, nothing to art or education, he has furnished a noble 
illustration of what may be accomplished by the fire of real 
genius, by the force of an indomitable will, by the energy of a 
constant and courageous soul, uttering itself through the medium 
of a voice whose trumpet tones will be among the cherished 
memories of all who ever heard it, and which God never gave 
to be the organ of any thing less than a master-mind." 

An}' notice of Mr. Clay's personal qualities and charac- 
ter would be incomplete without some reference to his 
religious relations. He was an outspeaking • man on this, 
as on all other subjects ; and his own words and acts will 
afford the truest indication of his faith and feelinirs. His 



36 HENRY CLAY. 

language in the Senate of the United States, in 1832, — 
when a joint resolution to call upon the President of the 
United States to appoint a National Fast, on account of 
the Asiatic Cholera, which had extended its ravages to 
our own Continent, had met with opposition, — may well 
be recalled first in this connection. 

" I am a member," said he, " of no religious sect, and I am 
not a professor of religion. I regret that I am not. I wish that 
I was, and trust that I shall be. I have, and always have had, 
a profound regard for Christianity, the religion of my fathers, 
and for its rites, its usages, and its observances. Among these, 
that which is proposed in this resolution has always commanded 
the respect of the good and the devout, and I hope it will obtain 
the concurrence of the Senate." 

On the 29th of November, 1844, in the volume of his 
private correspondence, published some years after his 
death, we find the following expressions in a letter to a 
clergyman, who had written to offer him his sympathy 
on his defeat as the candidate for the Presidency : — 

" I am greatly obliged by the desire you manifest that I 
should seek, in the resources of religion, consolation for all the 
vexations and disappointments of Hfe. I hope you will continue 
your prayers for me, since I trust I am not altogether unworthy 
of them. I have long been convinced of the paramount im- 
portance of the Christian religion. I have, for many years, 
fervently sought its blessings. I shall persevere in seeking 
them, and I hope, ultimately, to attain a firm faith and confi- 
dence in its promises. There is nothing for which I feel so 
anxious. May God, in his infinite mercy, grant what I so 
ardently desire." 

Two years and a half after the date of this letter, on 
the 22d of June, 1847, the Parish Register of Christ 
Church, Lexington, Kentucky, has the following record : 
" HenryClay, of Ashland, was baptized." And the Epis- 
copal Register of the Diocese of Kentucky adds : " He 
was confirmed by the Rt. Rev. B. B. Smith, D.D., in the 



HENRY CLAY. 37 

Chapel of Morrison College, Lexington, on Sunday the 
18th of July, 1847, and became a communicant." 

The baptism of Mr. Cla}^, at so late a period of his life, 
is sufficiently explained by the fact that his father was a 
Baptist clergyman, who died when he was but four years 
of age, and that thus, belonging to a religious denomina- 
tion which rejected infant baptism, and bereaved of the 
parent w^ho would have cared for its administration in 
later years, his attention had not been awakened to the 
subject. 

The Bishop of Kentucky, by whom he was confirmed, 
— the Right Reverend Benjamin Bosworth Smith, D.D., — 
is still living, in his eighty-sixth year, the Presiding Bishop 
of the House of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
in the United States of America. He was long a neighbor, 
and always an intimate friend of Mr. Clay, and I have 
recently had some interesting anecdotes of the great 
Kentuckian from the lips of this venerated prelate. He 
remembers well when Mr. Clay first expressed to him his 
desire to become a member of the Church, and to be ad- 
mitted to its ordinances. In relation to his baptism, he 
remembers that immersion was offered to him, as con- 
formable to the usages of his father's denomination, and 
not inconsistent with those of the Episcopal Church ; but 
Mr. Clay replied at once, that he had no disposition what- 
ever to stand upon forms, or to deviate in any way from 
the customs of the Church which he was about to join, 
and that he preferred to submit himself implicitly to the 
Bishop's discretion. 

How far the death of his dear son, Colonel Henry Clay, 
Jr., at the battle of Buena Vista, a few months before, 
may have induced Mr. Clay no longer to defer fulfilling 
the desire he had expressed so many years previously, 
can be known only to the Searcher of all hearts. But 
from 1847 he was a conmiunicant of the Episcopal Church, 
and a frequent worshipper at the Rev. Dr. Butler's 



38 HENRY CLAY. 

Church in Washington, where Webster of Massachusetts, 
and Berrien of Georgia, and Badger of North CaroHna, 
and Barnwell Rliett of South Carohna, — to name no 
others, — were to be found at the Communion Table to- 
getlier from time to time. Dr. Butler attended Mr. Clay 
in his last illness, and published an interesting and im- 
pressive account of his partaking of the Lord's Supper a 
short time before his death. 

And thus this great American Statesman left an exam- 
ple of faith, as well as of patriotism, more precious than 
all the services he ever rendered, or all the honors he 
ever enjoyed or coveted. In days like these, when so 
many influences are in the way of diverting both young 
and old from relio-ious associations and ordinances, as 
well as from a just discharge of their political obligations, 
such an example of love of country and of belief in 
Christianity may well be commended to consideration. 

I can close this imperfect sketch with nothing more 
appropriate than the concluding passage of a Eulogy on 
Mr. Clay, by his eloquent and admirable colleague in the 
Senate for some years, afterwards the Attorney-General 
of the United States, John Jfimm Crittenden, of Ken- 
tucky, — a kindred spirit, of less ambition, but of hardly 
inferior power : — 

" Glorious as his life was, there w^as nothing that be- 
came him like the leaving of it. I saw^ him frequently 
during*: the slow and lino-erini? disease which terminated 
his life. He was conscious of his approaching end, and 
prepared to meet it with all the resignation and fortitude 
of a Christian hero. He was all patience, meekness, and 
gentleness ; these shone round him like a mild, celestial 
light, breaking upon him from another world ; — 

" And, to add greater honors to his age 
Than man couhl give, lie died fearing God." 

August, 1879. , 



APPENDIX. 



39 



Henry Clay, born April 12, 1777, was married, in April, 1799, 
to Lucretia Hart, daughter of Thomas Hart, originally of North 
Carolina, and afterwards of Lexington, Kentucky. She was 
born March 19, 1781, and died April 6, 1861. 

Their children were : — 

1. Henrietta Clat, born June 25, 1800; died June 4, 1801. 

2. Theodore Wtthe Clay, born July 3, 1802 ; died May 5, 1870. 

3. Thomas Hart Clay, born September 22, 1803 ; married Mary Rus- 

sell Mentelle, daughter of French emigrants, who had been long 
settled in Kentucliy ; their living children are Henry B. Clay, 
Thomas H. Clay, who resides in Lexington, Kentucky, and INIary 
E. Clay : the father died March 18, 1871. 

4. Susan Hart Clay, born February 14, 1805; married Martin Duralde 

of Louisiana, and had two children, of whom neither is now living; 
died in 1825. 

5. Ann Brown Clay, born April 15, 1807 ; married James Erwin, and 

had six children, of whom none are now living ; died November, 
1835. 

6. Ltjcretia Hart Clay, born February, 1809 ; died June 18, 1823. 

7. Henry Clay, Jr., born April 10, 1811 ; married Julia Grather, Octo- 

ber 10, 1832; and had three children. Of the two sons, Henry 
died while an aide-de-camp to the Union General Rousseau, and 
Thomas Julian died w^hile an aide-de-camp to the Confederate Gen- 
eral Buckner, during the late Civil War. The father was killed at 
the battle of Buena Vista, February 23, 1847. The daughter mar- 
ried Henry C. McDowell, and is living with a number of children. 

8. Eliza H. Clay, born July 5, 1813 ; died August 11, 1827. 

9. Laura Clay, born October 16, 1815; died January 5, 1817. 

10. James B. Clay, born November 9, 1817; died January 26, 1864. 

11. John M. Clay, the only surviving child of Henry Clay, born Feb- 

ruary 21, 1821 ; married Josephine Russell Erwin, has no children, 
and resides on a portion of the original Ashland estate of his 
father. 

Ashland, the home of the illustrious statesman, is now owned 
by the Kentucky University. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 838 588 3 



m-%t^ 



